Peanut Butter Granola Bar Bites

I’m super excited to tell you I ran over 22 miles last week! The breakdown was 3 6-milers and 1 just over 4 miles. It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to run this much (thank you knees and ankle). But I’m feeling great now and loving it!

This morning I ran 5 miles at an avg. 8:25 min/mile pace. Faster than last week. Yea! I have a friend running the Uberthon Oregon Marathon and I think I might do the Half. That would give me about 9 1/2 weeks until race day and I totally think I could do it. I’ve run a half before about 4 years ago. I can’t believe it’s taken this long to get back into running so much.

As I was running this morning I was thinking about fueling while running the half marathon. Kayla at Fit Life Forward has some good fueling tips that I need to try out.

For fast fueling before and after, these peanut butter granola bar bites would be a great choice. They have good protein with natural peanut butter and other nuts plus some carbs in the oatmeal. Mixed with unsweetened chopped dates and it’s a great fueling snack.

3/4 cup dates (if you don't have these on hand, you can just sub more peanut butter and honey to help them stick together sufficiently)

Add ins:

1/4 cup almonds (or other nuts of choice)

2 Tbsp flax seeds

1/4 cup unsweetened coconut

1/4 cup carob or chocolate chips (optional)

Instructions

Prep a 9x9 pan by lining it with piece of parchment paper, set aside.

In a large bowl, measure out your oats, cereal, and salt. Add in your peanut butter, honey, and vanilla.

In a food processor, pulse the dates a couple times until they are beginning to be chopped up. If you are adding almonds (or other nuts of choice) then put them in your food processor with the dates. Pulse dates and nuts together until the dates are sticky and chopped well. You could add 1 tsp of water at a time to the mixture to help it get wet and stickier if needed. Add dates and nuts to bowl.

If you want any of the other add-ins, put them in as well. You can use a large spoon to begin the mixing, but I use my hands to make sure everything is well blended. Test how well the mixture sticks together and if it's not doing a good job, add a little more peanut butter. I've even gone back and added more dates.